Thursday, May 24, 2007

Interfering Parents

My daughter S was totally pissed yesterday, and I am too!!

S and her friend have been working together on a school project for the last 2 months. Must say that the two of them had put in loads of effort throughout this time. I had occasionally given them some input on how they could improve on their powerpoint presentation, but basically it is their own work. They did a presentation to the teachers in school last month and more comments were given by their teachers and mentors. They have a BIG presentation to give tomorrow (25 May) at NUS.

Guess what? Yesterday evening (23 May), her partner emailed her a COMPLETELY NEW version of their powerpoint presentation and an incomplete speech, and begged her to use it. The speech was not complete, just her partners part, with my daughters part left blank, even though the powerpoint presentation included my daughter's part. When my daughter questioned her on why such a drastic change at the last minute, she said that her mother had looked at it and revamped the whole thing!!

What?? One day before and you change everything, and NO negotiation. She refused to use the version they had both worked on because HER MOTHER had told her that THEY should use one the mother had worked on??!!? Why? Because they want a good grade!! Come on! This is the kids project, let them decide themselves. They will be more proud if it was their own work. What's the point of a good grade if it is your mother's work??

AND is it fair to my daughter? Just the day before, and she has to totally rewrite her own parts to follow your powerpoint? Other people have other things to do also, you know? ANd guess what? In the speech, her daughter got all the interesting bits, and my daughter is left to talk about the dry boring parts of the project.

Hubby was totally pissed when he found out and suggested that I talk to the girl's mother. But I said NO. I did not want to interfere. S has to learn to deal with things like this.

So now they are both going to see their mentor teacher about it. Why can't parents let their kids do their own work. You can be a supporter in the background, but there is no need to do everything for them. Now I understand why my daughter comes home from school raves about how professional some of her classmates project look, and how some of the kids get such good grades for their projects whereas my daughter's projects usually comes out so amateurish!

All I can say is that : My daughter probably learnt more doing her own project! But I hope the teachers can see through this and should award the marks accordingly .

You are right not to interfere. I see the same problems everywhere in our schools. My son did his projects by himself. Once his sewing project was so well done, but the teacher just gave him a C. She thought I helped him. One day, she saw him sewing for his classmates and realised he could actually sew! His work was displayed in the Home Econs room but the grade remained. :(